


Forget-Me-Not

by tchallabucky (PuppyWillGraham)



Series: stevebucky drabbles [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: All hurt no comfort, Angst, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-War Bucky Barnes, So much angst, Stucky - Freeform, no, short and bitter, short and sweet?, stevebucky - Freeform, there is no fluff whatsoever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-28
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2018-03-09 11:03:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3247280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuppyWillGraham/pseuds/tchallabucky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Just don't do anything stupid until I get back."</p><p>"How can I? You're taking all the stupid with you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forget-Me-Not

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by a very small bout of research on lgbtqia+ history in new york during the early 20th century, and the ending of one flew over the cuckoo's nest.
> 
> please...forgive me for this. i wanted a somewhat historically accurate fic during preserum/pre-war stevebucky era and this created itself.

Someone that Bucky doesn't know comes to fetch him, and he follows on the notion that he should come see his _friend_ , Steve Rogers. He wonders why they stress that word. _Friend_. He instantly becomes paranoid and worried. It's hard not to be after so long of keeping their little _secret_ to themselves.

They're both incredibly sweet on each other; they both have been for years now, ever since they'd been thirteen or fourteen. Just boys. And just boys messed around, before the _messing around_ became somewhat serious. As serious as it could've been in their society.

Nobody could know.

Could they?

\--

When Bucky first sees Steve again, his face pales, his whole demeanor changes, weakening in an instant, because _what have they done to his best friend?!_

"What have you done to him?" He tries to sound strong but it comes out weak; about as weak as Steve looks, still strapped to a gurney. A precaution? Or to keep him in place, so he won't just...fall off of the thing?

Bucky swallows hard, waiting for an answer, reasoning, excuses, explanations, _anything_.

"We've performed a simple procedure on the test subject here," someone else Bucky doesn't know speaks up in offering, but all it does is make Bucky feel sick to his stomach. "Something called a lobotomy. Something to fix the broken parts of his brain. That...sin of his, it had to be fixed, James. I do hope you undertstand."

Bucky doesn't know whether to sink to the floor or scream, the cogs of his own (broken) brain working fast to fill in the gaps. He knows, deep in his gut, what they're angling at, and it terrifies the young soldier. Maybe that's another thing they wanted to succeed in.

Then it hits him, not a moment too soon, that this...surely can't be _legal_. He'd read up on things like this in class before. In the library. It wasn't proved to be _safe_ , or _legitimate_ , and now his _best fuckin' friend_ \--

"Say something, James," the man from before speaks up again, motioning to Steve.

"How did you-- What did you promise him, to get him to come here?" Bucky thinks this could be a dream. A nightmare. One he'll wake up from soon.

_God he hopes so, because what kind of **fucked** **up** world are they living in, what did they **do** to get Steve to follow them here? He doesn't trust a great deal of many people, not since his ma passed, and oh God, what would Sarah Rogers be thinkin'? Sayin'? She **knew** about them, she **accepted** those parts of them, loving them no less no matter how **wrong** and **sinful** they were, and Bucky was supposed to **look** **after** Steve Rogers, that's what he'd been put on this Earth to do, and he couldn't even do that correctly..._

He thinks he may throw up after all.

Except he doesn't. Not when that man is explaining himself, and the _simple_ (life destroying) procedure, and how Steve followed them on the pretense of a _super_ _serum_ to help him get enlisted in the army.

"I believe he wanted to do it for you. Everything, James. It was all for you," another man chimes in, and suddenly Bucky wants to swing for 'em both.

He ends up sinking to the floor and passing out, instead.

\--

When Bucky reawakens, he's laid out on a bed, and upon looking to his left, he notices that Steve is there, too, sitting up as straight as he can with all his health problems and ailments, vacant and unresponsive, even to Bucky's softly spoken, " _how ya doin', pal?_ "

It breaks Bucky's heart.

It feels like a punishment for them both, for something neither could control. Being even a hint of a queer...

Neither could help themselves when it came to finding solace in the other. They weren't doing nothin' wrong, they were just helping each other out, keepin' to themselves, so how did they slip up?

Bucky doesn't know, and he probably won't ever know.

Looking at Steve again, even though it's _nothing_ like Steve at all, Bucky's heart breaks all over again. He's lost him, as sure as his heart beats ragged against his chest.

 _I've-lost-him, I've-lost-him, I've-lost-him, I've-lost-him, I've-lost-him, I've-lost-him_.

Where has the fight in Steve-- _his Stevie_ \-- gone? Why has it been allowed to go out like a light? Why did their _God_ allow for this to happen?

Bucky watches Steve for a few moments, shaking his head slowly as he stands, tears already pricking at the edges of his vision. He can't allow this. It's cruel and insufferable. Steve wouldn't want this. He's a fighter, not a Goddamn _vegetable_.

It becomes apparent to Bucky that the many things Steve suffered with all on his own beforehand and made trouble, would come to be of a great help right now. He can hear the rattling in Steve's chest as he manoeuvres the smaller and frail body to lay down on the bed properly. Bucky takes the pillow from beneath Steve's head and stares into those once familiar baby blue hues, tears in his own grey eyes, letting them spill down over his cheeks.

\--

Bucky's fall still happens. Nothing else changes. He's still brainwashed and tormented and molded into the notorious Asset. The Winter Soldier.

But no matter how many times his mind is wiped, no matter how many times he's put back into cryo and becomes dormant between missions when he's no longer needed, and no matter how many people's lives he quickly and quietly ends, nothing makes him feel half as weak or as guilty as when flashes of that one night back in the early 1940's somehow manage to come back to his mind, when he'd finished putting out the light in his own best friend.

**Author's Note:**

> not beta'd, so all mistakes and errors are my own. 
> 
> all comments, kudos and crit are appreciated. thank you for taking the time to read this.


End file.
